That’s what has been running through my head the past few days after watching someone dive deep into depression and anger over the past few weeks. How long do you stay angry at the injustices you’ve experienced in the past?

The more I start to examine this, I’m starting to believe you are a victim when IT happens to you. Whatever IT is. After IT, that’s the real test of your mettle: you can either stay a victim or become a Survivor.

That doesn’t mean your anger has to go away, or will go away. But maybe it’s more about what you choose to do WITH that anger that becomes important. There are Survivors who work -HARD- to process what happened to them and move beyond it. Move to a place where they no longer judge themselves by IT happening.

IT becomes a (small) part of who we are, a tiny thing that makes up the larger SELF that is thriving and vibrant and moving towards freedom. They take their anger and they DO something with it.

But… then there are Survivors that can’t seem to understand that they’ve Survived. They’re still lost in their victimhood. They’re still fixated on their wrong, and allow their anger over being wronged to drive them forward (when really they’re regressing backward). Never to grow, never to move past IT.

We are a culmination of our traumas and our triumphs, and triumphing over a past trauma is a journey that never seems to end, but can get better and become incredibly rewarding with hard work.